


Talk to Me

by A_BadSpellr



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pain, Really just Oliver being angsty, not actual olicity, olicity - Freeform, sad Oliver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6634825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_BadSpellr/pseuds/A_BadSpellr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity is gone. Oliver isn't coping well. His emotions are starting to affect the mission. Can Oliver pull himself together before someone gets hurt?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Talk to Me

**Author's Note:**

> I have some angst to work out. Sorry not sorry.

“Talk to me, Overwatch.”

Silence.

“Overwatch do you-“

“Take the overpass. The red eighteen wheeler is the one carrying the shipment. Just be careful. There’s live ammo in some of those crates.”

“Copy that, Spartan.”

That’s the third time today Diggle had cut him off like that. Something must be wrong. The arms shipment took priority now, but as soon as he got back to the lair, he would figure this out.

He gunned his bike, picking up speed as he wove through traffic. Cars whizzed by him, all flashing lights and reflective surfaces. The road was wet from the near constant showers throughout the day, but thankfully the rain had stopped just before the mission. Rain was a welcome distraction for infiltration, not so much for high speed chases on two wheels.

Thea followed behind him, trying to get to the truck from a different angle. She had calmed down a lot after the Lotus closed her wound, but she still had s _lowed_ down at all. Still full speed ahead all the time. Still Speedy.

“Speedy, do you have eyes on?”

“Yeah Ollie I see the truck. You would too if you weren’t so slow.”

“Speedy, we’re in the field. Take this serio-“

“Ok ok, don’t need to go all ‘Hood’ on me. I’m in position _Green Arrow.”_

The emphasis on his name was unnecessary. Then again, so was his tone. He would apologize to her after the mission. She knew things had been difficult the last couple weeks with Feli- with everything that had happened. The mission was all he had right now. He needed it to go the way he wanted.

“Arrow, we have problem.”

Cisco Ramon’s voice coming over the comms still felt wrong, even after a week of him running ops with them. Hey had taken over after Curtis’s first shot at it, though it was temporary. He had to get back to Central City and Barry, but Cisco never turned down a request for tech based support. Barry was lucky to have someone like him to have his back. Caitlin was there for him too, guiding him as ran through city streets.

But neither one of them would ever hold candle to _her._

“And by problem I mean we have a huge issue. This would be a problem for The Flash. That’s how big this problem is.”

“What’s the problem, Overwatch?”

“Geez, your sister is right about the voice. Is that because of the voice modulator or are you just angry all the time? I can totally understand if the comms frequency could also pick up the voice modulator. This tech is all pretty awesome. I was messing around with it and tweaked a few-“

“Don’t change anything!”

“…oookayyy. Right. Won’t change anything. Just gunna run comms. For the Green Arrow. Because that’s what I’m doing. Just that.”

Everything had him so on edge he was just lashing out. He needed to get himself together. Other people were depending on him to keep his cool. He couldn’t think about any of that right now. The mission was too important.

“Anyway…There are-“

“Ollie, there’s three! Which one is the target?”

“What?”

“There’s three trucks Ollie! They’re all headed towards the Glades and they’re driving three wide across the highway. I can’t get to the driver’s cabs! What’s our move?”

“Spartan? What do you see?”

“You’re going to lose them in about four hundred meters. The road splits to go the Glades, the financial district and back to the interstate. One truck for each exit. You can’t pursue them all.”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all. They never had any intel on other trucks. The shipment had seemed suspect, but they hadn’t been able to investigate it because Feli- there wasn’t anyone who could hack the shipping company’s system and check the item manifests. Nor could they get information on the route or the driver. All they had was a vague description of a truck and the end destination. They had gone in half blind and now had blown up in their faces.

It was all his fault.

He should have taken the extra time to stake out the truck. He should have down recon on the route. He should have made sure that there weren’t any snags. He always had before. _She_ always made sure he did. But now that she wasn’t with them, he was forgetting things. His edge was gone.

So what now? If there were three trucks now, what else had he missed? Were the drivers armed? Were the trailers rigged with traps? What about backup? Did they have backup along the route?

“Arrow, what’s the call?”

Diggle’s voice cut through his thoughts, its urgency demanding his attention. He had ridden almost one hundred meters since John had called out their position. Three hundred meters till he lost them. He could take the truck headed for the Glades and leave Thea to trail the one headed downtown. But that left the one leaving the city free. What if that truck was carrying the arms?

Two hundred and fifty meters.

The truck leaving the city could take the weapons anywhere on the West Coast. As long as they weren’t in Star City anymore it shouldn’t be an issue, but the idea of letting them go when there was a chance to give them over the authorities was still something to consider. And what if that truck had more than just automatic weapons? Some of the other shipments they had stopped carried RPGs. Did this one have them too?

Two hundred meters.

If there were RPGs in the third truck, what about the other two? RPGs in Star City were definitely his problem. He couldn’t just let them drive away. He had to make a decision. What truck do they follow? What route do they take?

One hundred meters.

A car swerved out in front of him, clipping his front tire. The heavy crunch of metal followed, and Oliver was thrown from the seat of his motorcycle. His relative speed meant he had a long way to go before he hit the ground. He’d split his focus, something he always chided Thea for, and now he was going to lose all three trucks.

He twisted in the air, trying to tuck his legs to roll, but the fall ended abruptly as he landed on the hood of a passing car. He landed on his back, the breath knocked out of him. He felt something move inside his chest; a rib must have been cracked. The impact sent shocks through his entire body. He bounced of the hood of the car, the momentum of the car making him roll across the windshield then the roof, and finally rolling of the trunk and falling to the ground. The multiple hits on his already cracked ribs made them twist and ache.

He hit the pavement hard on his left leg, the rolling motion making it twist at an unnatural angle. His lower leg turned and he felt his muscles tear and bone crack. He screamed, the motion making his cracked ribs move around in his chest. The motion made him squirm, triggering another flare of pain from his shattered leg. It became an agonizing cycle. Pain caused movement; movement caused pain. It galvanized his thoughts, bringing to mind an idea he had been avoiding all night.

This wouldn’t have happened if Felicity was still here.

He missed her. He missed her laugh, her rambles, her calm voice in his ear as he fought. She made sure he was safe. She protected him from everything, even himself. Without her here, he couldn’t keep himself together. He needed to hear her voice. If he could hear her, _talk to her_ , everything would be ok.

“Talk to me Felicity.”

She didn’t answer him.

“Talk to me Felicity.”

Silence.

The pain was getting worse. His vision narrowed, blackness creeping along the edges of his view. He could actually feel his ribs moving against is lungs. It was harder to breath now, one of his lungs must have been punctured. He would pass out soon, he could feel it coming. He still hadn’t heard her voice. He needed to hear her voice. She needed to tell him it would be ok. She needed to tell him there was another way to track the weapons, another way to be without her next to him. He needed to hear it.

“Talk to me Felicity…please.”

She didn’t answer him as he slipped in and out of consciousness. She didn’t answer him when Diggle and Thea took him to the hospital and cut his costume away in the van. She didn’t answer him when the doctors listed his injuries after surgery; a broken leg, a shattered kneecap, three broken ribs, punctured lung, fractured collar bone and a broken wrist. She didn’t answer when Dig called her to tell her about his injuries.

She didn’t answer him when he finally admitted to himself he couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t be the Green Arrow without her. He couldn’t be the man everyone knew without her. All he had left was what the island made him; physically and emotionally broken. She had made him whole and then made that version of him better. She made him more than a man. She made him a hero.

“Talk to me Felicity…please…I need to hear you voice. Tell me I can do this. Tell me I can still help them…talk to me Felicity…”

She didn’t answer him.

 


	2. Is That Enough?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and you shall receive friends! The angst is here!

The crutches hurt. They pressed into his arms, forcing him to put his weight on them. It was their purpose; to carry him because he couldn’t do it himself. They showed how weak he felt, how hard living had become for him. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t walk; hell, he couldn’t _hobble_ on his own. He needed help to do anything. He was useless be himself. All the crutches did was remind him how worthless he was. They were a physical embodiment of his broken mental state.

When did he become this weak?

The hospital had kept him for a week. Precautionary, they told him. Just to ensure no further damage could be caused by his ribs. The doctors set them, but too much movement could puncture a lung and he couldn’t risk that. He needed to be gone from this hospital bed as soon as possible. The days had dragged on and on. No company could break the monotony. Diggle sat with him and watched whatever game was on, not speaking unless necessary. His silent support was welcome. The older man knew what he needed.

Thea and Laurel were a different story. All they did was talk about Felicity. They told him how well she was doing, how Palmer Tech was transitioning to a medical technology company. Curtis would head up the Research and Development department, with Felicity driving the company forward. She found a purpose and a goal. She was happy.

They told him how happy she was every single day.

They didn’t understand how much that hurt.

He wanted her to be happy. He really did. She deserved every bit of joy that life could give her. But the fact that she could find it so easily without him, while he struggled to keep himself afloat, proved that he had been right all along. He never should have said anything about his feelings. He never should have told her the truth. He never should have tried to be with her. She was better off without him.

The leg of crutch hit the coffee table by the couch and he lost his balance. He fell forward and just barely caught himself. A second later and his knee would have shattered again when it hit the edge of the table. Not back in the loft three minutes and he already managed to almost ruin everything.

“Ollie! Oh my god, are you ok?”

Thea. She had volunteered to watch him. Doctor’s orders. It was the only way they would let him out. Of course, being angry and acting like a dick to every doctor and nurse made it easier. He knew she meant well. She wanted to help, make him feel like he wasn’t alone. The problem was she said _her_ name every five minutes.

“I’m fine.”

“Here, let me help you up.”

“I said I’m fine!”

Thea scowled at him. He snapped more and more now, and he cared less and less. He was angry. Angry he let himself get hurt, angry he was imposing on others, angry that he had thought, for even _one second_ that he could make the woman of his dreams happy. He should have just kept her there.

“Look Ollie, you can be angry. You can be hurt. You can pretend like Felicity-“

“Don’t say her name!”

“You can pretend like _FE-LI-CI-TY_ doesn’t exist. But none of that gives you the right to act like you’re the only one who is hurting or sad.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Like that’s new.”

He looked at his sister and bit back a growl. She didn’t understand. She never would. Nobody would ever understand. It hurt so much because he had let himself be fooled. He’d let himself believe, believe with all his heart, that he could be happy, that it was a good thing he was in Felicity’s life. And when he found out about William, he tried to so hard to hold onto that dream. It started to slip through is fingers. When she was shot…god everything just feel apart. The world he had lived in exploded, crashing down around him. Slade’s voice was in his head, telling him it was his fault that Felicity got hurt. He couldn’t protect them from harm, no matter how hard he tried. The laughter reminded him that no all he ever created was pain and suffering. It was only just that he with that.

Thea sighed and rolled her eyes at him as he moved to sit on the couch. She was about to get loud with him. He knew that look. She learned it from _her._

“Wake up, big brother. People are depending on you. They don’t need you to run on rooftops or beat up criminals. They need to you stand up and give them hope. That’s what you are; a symbol that things can be better. You don’t get to curl up in a ball and cry for yourself. You never stopped before. You got mad and you fought back. So fight. Fight with yourself and get over it. People _need_ you Ollie. You and the Green Arrow.”

“I can’t be the Green Arrow without her. The arms heist proved that.”

“You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgement. You lectured me on this when you first got back. So take your own advice and pull your head out of your ass.”             

The loud voice and the choice of words pulled him back years, to a dark and cold cement basement and a small blonde woman, telling him the same thing when he took his anger out on her. She had walked away from him then too. He didn’t know then how hard it would be without her, how much he needed her. That was nothing compared to now.

“Thea, I came back for her. I became the Green Arrow for her.”

“So be the Green Arrow for yourself.”

“I don’t want to be the Green Arrow…”

Thea looked at him like he had slapped her.

“What?”

“I was happy in Ivy Town. I was free. There was this weight I felt in Starling. John told me that secrets have weight. Here, the secrets crushed me. There, the secrets didn’t matter because I wasn’t that guy there.”

“That guy?”

“The Arrow, Ollie, Oliver Queen. I didn’t have to be any of them. I could just…be. I’ve never been that free before.”

“So what? Now that Felicity’s gone you just run away and hide in Ivy Town and pretend like nothing ever happened?

The idea sounded appealing. There weren’t any stairs in that house. He could cook for himself. He technically owned the home. _She_ had signed the paperwork and gifted it to him. It would be simple. The airport would be a bitch, but he could manage it in a few more days.

“You’re really thinking about it.” She scoffed at him and threw her hands up in the air. “You know what Ollie, fine. Just go. Throw yourself a pity party and run away to the other side of the country. At least then Felicity will know she made the right choice.”

It was a knife in the heat. A sword through his chest and a fall into oblivion. Her words hurt so much because, damnit she was right. He wanted to run. Run as far away as he could and just forget. Forget all the pain, all the hurt, all the lies. Leave Oliver Queen behind and just be someone else. He’d earned that right? Eight years was enough, right?

The door slammed behind her when she left. He was alone again. The loft was mostly empty now. Since _she_ had left, there wasn’t any reason to fill it again. It fit. He felt like a part of him was missing, and more of him was slipping away every day. The days has been alright. The light kept him from taking off the mask of Oliver Queen. It forced him to going. At night, he wore his other mask and fought back the pain with anger, fueling mission after mission, even going as far as working alone on a case. As long as he didn’t have to be here at night.

But when he did spend the night here…those nights were the worst. She had left and taken all of her things, but she was still here. She was still everywhere. She laid next to him on the bed, watched him from the entrance to the bedroom as he dressed, sat the table and waited for dinner. She propped her feet up on his thigh when she read on the couch. She stood out on the balcony and smiled at him, inviting him to look out over the city, _their_ city…

His phone broke the silence. The ring echoed in the nearly empty loft. He felt a spike of panic, mixed with something dangerous. Maybe _she_ was calling him. Maybe _she_ had heard what happened to him and wanted to make sure he was alright. Maybe…maybe _she_ missed him.

What if Felicity missed him?

He scrambled for the phone and almost slammed his knee into the coffee table again. He caught himself just in time, but the abrupt movement pushed the table away. He lost his leverage and crashed to the ground. The pain burned him from the inside. It raced through him and set off every nerve ending in his body. But the pain didn’t matter. He had to get to his phone. Felicity could be calling him. He could hear her voice, he had to hear her voice. No, he _needed_ to hear. Just one more time.

His fingers grabbed onto the table and he pulled it to him, unable to put any weight on his legs for leverage. The table scraped across the floor, agonizingly slow. Finally, it was close enough for him to grab his phone. The device teetered on the edge. He got his fingers around it, ignoring the steadily increasing pain in his chest. He twisted, his ribs screaming at him as he fell back with the phone. He laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling, feeling completely defeated.

He missed the call.

The pain took over, coupling with the disappointment he felt. No, disappointment wasn’t even close to what he felt. He was back in Yao Fei’s cave with an arrow in his shoulder. He was back in the cage on the Amazo. He was back in the broken building where Akio died. He was back in the catacombs on Reiter’s prison. He was back in the interrogation room in Moscow. He was alone and broken.

After all he had been through, falling off a couch and missing a phone call were what broke him.

The tears fell, but the sobs never came. He just let them fall, thinking about what he needed to do to get to the house.

“You win. I give up. I’m done trying to live. I can’t do it without hurting everyone around me…. I can’t do this anymore.”

He whispered the words, but they seemed to echo all around him. The loft held them and blanketed him in it. He was tired, so tired of trying and failing to do what was best and right. He just wanted to be alone and free. Just for a little while. That was ok right? He’d earned that hadn’t he?

He didn’t notice the slightly open door or the small blonde woman standing just on the other side. He didn’t see the tears on her face, the pain on her face showing just how badly she wanted to go to him. He didn’t see her hands gripping the door so hard her knuckles were white. He didn’t see the devastated look that crossed her face when she heard his words. He didn’t see her cover her mouth to muffle the sobs that racked her body.

She didn’t see her close the door to the loft and walk away from him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, do we keep going? Your call :)

**Author's Note:**

> This may become part of a larger fic. I haven't decided yet :)


End file.
